This is a variant form of magic that is best played with 1-4 people using commander (EDH) decks. The goal of Horde Magic is to survive the onslaught of Zombies. The Horde deck has no life total, so the only way to win is to, uh, not die. Eventually the deck will run out of cards and you’ll be able to breath sight of relief.
Walking Corpse = 2/2 zombie token
Gurmag Angler = 5/5 zombie token
Participants
Horde Magic is divided up into two factions: The Horde (the deck that runs automatically) and The Survivors (the players).
Win conditions
The Horde wins if The Survivors' group life total is reduced to zero or below.
The Survivors win if The Horde has no cards in its library, no cards in its hand, and no creatures on the battlefield.
Rules for The Horde
The Horde has no player, it pilots itself.
When survivors cast cards like Fact or Fiction or Chainer's Edict the Horde must make the choice as randomly as possible.
The Horde has an infinite amount of mana at all times, so cards like Propaganda and Mana Leak don’t work. Sorry!
If you return a permanent to the Horde’s hand, it gets cast again on their next main phase.
There are a LOT of Magic cards in existence. If something doesn’t work the way it’s supposed to, just come up with the most fair way to execute the card. If you can’t, cycle it. This is a casual format.
The Horde's turn starts by revealing cards from the top of its library until a non-token card is revealed. All revealed tokens are then cast. The revealed non-token is cast. Then, if applicable, The Horde casts any cards that can be cast from its graveyard as well as any cards it has in its hand.
All creatures controlled by The Horde have Haste and "This creature must attack each turn if able."
The Horde has no life total. Damage dealt to The Horde causes that many cards from the top of The Horde's library to be put into its graveyard.
Rules for The Survivors
The Survivors have three turns to set their defenses before The Horde gets its first turn. Then turns alternate like normal.
Like in Two-Headed Giant, The Survivors are a team and all take their turn simultaneously. The Survivors attack and block as a team.
Each Survivor contributes 20 life to the group life total.
Adjusting the difficulty of The Horde
Depending upon the number of players and/or the type of decks being used by The Survivors, it may be necessary to adjust some of the aspects of the game in order to set the difficulty of the game to a preferable level. The following are ways to adjust the difficulty and power level of The Horde:
Adjust the number of turns in which The Survivors have to prepare.
Adjust the amount of life each of The Survivors contributes to the team.
Exile a random portion of the Horde Deck prior to the first turn.
Card Selection during Horde Deck deck construction and/or a sideboard.
Replace random choices by The Horde with consensus decisions by The Survivors.
Allow tokens to remain in the graveyard instead of ceasing to exist.
Allow or disallow The Survivors to attack The Horde during their set-up turns.
Adjust the token to non-token ratio.
Number of players
When you have more Survivors, the Horde becomes easier to defeat. So the number cards that the Survivors face is determined by players.
Solo – 45 Cards
2 Players – 60 Cards
3 Players – 75 Cards
4 Players – 100 Cards
Broken cards
Cards that break the horde deck, such as Crawlspace, Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite, Mind Funeral, Platinum Angel, Stormtide Leviathan, ect., are banned because they simply make the game unfun. The whole idea is to battle a nearly endless legion of undead.
Endless variant!!!
Each time the Horde loses, reshuffle and restart with an emblem giving all it’s creatures +1/+1, and seeing how many rounds the Survivors last.
